(NEW YORK)– Thousands of migrants seeking asylum who endured a 2,000-mile journey over several days, with little to no belongings or family, aboard buses sent from Texas now find themselves facing challenges establishing their new lives in New York City.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, since early May, has been sending busloads of migrants out of Texas to cities with Democrat leaders, including New York City and Washington, D.C. The Republican governor says he started the busing programs in response to the Biden administration’s immigration policies which he claims inadequately secure the border, forcing states like his to bear the brunt of migrant waves.
Many of the migrants are still arriving almost daily in the Big Apple, including 18-year-old student Brayan Amaro, who began his journey alone in his home country of Venezuela.
“The journey was terrible; going through all those countries was terrible because there was extortion, you had to pay . . . you had to pay all the police,” Amaro told ABC News. “There was not one of them that wasn’t corrupt…”
“I’m still a boy who’s very young. I hope to have better opportunities here,” Amaro said. “If I can keep on studying. All of that.”
Amaro says this will be his opportunity to “get ahead and be a better person than in Venezuela.” Migrants arriving from Texas at the Port Authority Bus Terminal in Manhattan are greeted by volunteers from aid groups, nonprofits and the city’s immigration office.
“Many of them are seeking asylum at the border,” Muzaffar Chishti, a senior fellow at the Migration Policy Institute, told ABC News. “Instead of people being taken at a place of their choice, or what would be the most logical place for their claim to be processed, they’re being sent to New York and D.C., where they may not have any family, where they may not have a lawyer that they would choose to be represented by.”
Nonprofit organizations continue to step in and distribute resources to welcome migrants arriving with their few belongings.
Ariadna Phillips, the founder of South Bronx Mutual Aid, and a group of volunteers lead efforts to secure transportation for migrants.
“This is just regular people here in New York banding together to make sure that, you know, our friends that are coming in are feeling safe and welcome and appreciated,” Phillips told ABC News.
For many migrants like licensed nurse Joana Alvarez, New York City is not the final destination.
“I have my mother and my father. Look, it was for them, I came for them,” Alvarez said in Spanish.
Like Amaro, Alvarez made the journey through Venezuela to Texas’ border on her own. With Phillips’ support, Alvarez is set to board another bus headed for upstate New York, where she will stay with a host family that she has yet to meet.
“In New York, we have what’s called the right-to-shelter city, where if anyone comes to our city, we have a moral and legal obligation to provide shelter, and we’re doing that every day,” New York City Mayor Eric Adams told ABC News.
Abbott’s busing operation led to the arrival of more than 6,000 asylum seekers in New York City alone, according to Adams. The high demand placed unforeseen strain on the city’s social services, calling for the opening of 13 emergency shelters to house the incoming migrants.
Adams said this “crisis calls for coordination” between the two administrations, but they have still been unable to collaborate on the issue.
In New York City, overwhelming support is being traced back to nonprofits, which are bearing the brunt on the unprecedented migrant influx and the decreased availability of resources and services.
A mother from Colombia, now based in the South Bronx with her four children, arrived on a bus from Texas a few days ago. The bus ride, she said, was “a little hard,” with not even a bathroom for her children to use.
“We lasted three days in the bus with hunger, with thirst,” the mother told ABC News in Spanish.
With the help of one organization, she’s been able to make strides toward opportunity and stability for her new life with her family in New York City.
“To be able to give a, offer a good future for my kids,” the mother said in Spanish. “So that in that same way we’re able to support other people who arrive here as well, just like how they have supported me.”
(WATSONVILLE, Calif.) — “Multiple fatalities” were reported after two small planes collided mid-air at a California airport on Thursday, officials said.
The crash occurred shortly before 3 p.m. local time at the Watsonville Municipal Airport in Watsonville, an agricultural area located about 50 miles south of San Jose, officials said.
The two planes were attempting to land when they collided, the city of Watsonville said on social media. “We have reports of multiple fatalities,” it said.
A single-engine Cessna 152 and a twin-engine Cessna 340 “collided while the pilots were on their final approaches,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement.
Three people were on board the planes — one in the Cessna 152 and two in the Cessna 340 — the agency said, though it did not provide an update on their conditions. No injuries were reported to anyone on the ground, it said.
The Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office said it responded to an aircraft collision on Aviation Way near the airport and secured the scene with the Watsonville Police Department.
An investigation is underway by the National Transportation Safety Board and the FAA.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(WASHINGTON) — Apple on Monday made headlines as the latest major company to call its workers back to the office, setting a deadline for early next month that will require workers to do their jobs in person three days each week, Bloomberg reported.
The move came days after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new guidelines that softened the recommended precautions for preventing the spread of COVID.
The guidelines, announced last Thursday, recommended institutions screen otherwise healthy individuals for the virus in most settings, and the new rules set aside the 6-feet standard for social distancing.
Further, the guidelines relaxed a five-day quarantine period for unvaccinated individuals after an exposure to COVID. Instead, following an exposure, unvaccinated people should forego the quarantine but wear a mask for 10 days and test after five days, the CDC said.
The change in CDC policy will make it easier for employers to bring workers back to the office, shifting the public health responsibility to individual workers and away from businesses, while allowing all workers to stay on the job after a COVID exposure, public health experts told ABC News. The move reflects an approach that aims to mitigate spread but not prevent infection entirely, as widespread immunity and treatments reduce the risk of severe illness, they added.
However, the CDC guidelines will not spur a rapid shift back to in-person work, or even any shift at all, since public health concerns no longer make up the primary reason behind remote work, economists told ABC News. Rather, the widely held preference among employees for some degree of remote work — combined with the leverage afforded to workers as employers struggle to fill openings — should preserve the current level of remote work, the economists added.
“Even as COVID recedes as a reason for all these work arrangements, they’ve now developed a momentum of their own,” Julia Pollak, a labor economist for job site ZipRecruiter, told ABC News. “It’s difficult to put the genie back in the bottle.”
In recent months, the U.S. economy has reached a stable level of roughly 30% of all paid working days done from home, said Jose Maria Barrero, a finance professor at Instituto Tecnológico Autónomo de México, a private university in Mexico City, who co-authors a regular survey on remote work. When limited to jobs for which it is possible to work from home, such as managerial-style roles, the proportion of paid working days done at home rises to between 50% and 60%, he added.
Early in the pandemic, employees wanted to work remotely far more than businesses wanted to accommodate them, Barrero said. Over time, however, that gap has narrowed considerably, in part because companies have conceded to the preferences of workers, who retain significant leverage in a tight labor market. In light of how stable the level of at-home work has become, even if economic or public health conditions change, the proportion of workdays done in-person will likely remain consistent, he said.
“We’re actually pretty close to what the post-pandemic normal is going to be,” Barrero said.
That view of a permanent remote workplace contradicted the newfound ease for employers under the recently released guidelines. However, the outlook aligned with the reaction to the guidelines voiced by several epidemiologists, who said the new rules reflect a shift toward living with covid as a permanent feature of everyday life, much like remote work.
The removal of quarantine for unvaccinated people upon exposure, for instance, shows a willingness to accept that people have largely given up stringent limits in the activity of their personal lives, Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told ABC News.
“This is much more real-world guidance,” he said. “Because people live in a certain way outside of work, that means exposures are ubiquitous.”
Meanwhile, workplaces benefit from the widespread immunity that has resulted from vaccine uptake or contraction of covid, said Wafaa El-Sadr, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Plus, remedies like vaccine boosters and treatments limit the likelihood of severe illness in the event of an infection, she added.
“There is a major shift in how people consider Covid-19, and getting infected with this virus,” El-Sadr told ABC News. “The shift has been happening slowly and this solidifies that shift to a different frame of mind.”
Still, the relaxation of workplace precautions like testing of asymptomatic people risks making businesses vulnerable to outbreaks, especially if the U.S. experiences another surge in cases, said Julia Raifman, a professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.
“Each of the tools we have are important — none of them are sufficient on their own to mitigate the harms of covid,” she said. “We need all of them.”
In either case, the ranks of those working at the office are not likely to grow anytime soon, said Barrero, the Mexico City-based economist.
“The question of return to work is much bigger than the pandemic, infections, and COVID at this point,” he said.
(NEW YORK) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott defended sending buses of migrants from the Texas-Mexico border to Democrat-led cities amid a feud with New York City Mayor Eric Adams, who accused Abbott of using migrants as “political pawns” amid a crisis on the southern border.
Abbott and Adams spoke with “Nightline” co-anchor Byron Pitts in interviews that aired on Wednesday, where Adams criticized the Republican governor for not coordinating the arrivals of migrants with NYC officials and Abbott doubled down on his policy to bus migrants out of Texas.
“We’ve got to secure our border because the Biden administration is not securing it,” Abbott said. “And then the reason why we began putting people on buses in the first place is because the Biden administration, they were literally dumping migrants off in small little towns of 10 or 25,000 people, and they were completely overwhelmed.”
Meanwhile, Adams criticized Abbott for not coordinating with NYC officials as buses of migrants arrived over the past two weeks.
“It’s the worst type of politics,” Adams said. “It’s hateful politics to raise his national profile and, you know what, you should not be doing it by taking away the respect and dignity of people who are in need.”
According to Adams, more than 6,000 migrants seeking asylum have arrived in NYC since May – many of whom were sent there due to Abbott’s busing policy.
Adams said during a June 21 press conference that the city will find shelter for migrants arriving from Texas under the state’s “right to shelter” law.
But as thousands of asylum seekers arrived in New York City over the past couple of months, the shelter system has been strained and city officials acknowledged that the NYC Department of Social Services violated New York City’s right to shelter mandate when it failed to place four families in shelters overnight.
Asked about Adams’ accusation that the policy to move migrants to New York City is political showmanship and “un-American,” Abbott accused Adams of “playing politics” and called him a “hypocrite.”
“He’s also being a hypocrite because New York City is a self-declared ‘sanctuary city,’” Abbott said. “And so why he’s ever complaining for one moment about these people being bused into a city goes against his own self-declaration of being a sanctuary city.” The term “sanctuary city” refers to municipalities like New York City that are willing to defy federal immigration laws in order to protect undocumented immigrants.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has requested help from the National Guard to deal with the crisis.
A defense official told ABC News in a statement on Aug. 5 that Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin “has declined to approve the DCHSEMA request for DCNG to provide personnel and the DC Armory to assist the NGO, SAMU First Response, with transportation and reception of migrants arriving in the DC area.”
“We have determined providing this support would negatively impact the readiness of the DCNG and have negative effects on the organization and members,” the official said, adding that there is sufficient funding through FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program to address the crisis.
But Bowser renewed her call for help from the National Guard later that week.
“We need help from our federal partners as we seek to stabilize and manage our operating environment in this critical moment,” Bowser tweeted on Aug. 11. “I have been honored to work with the men and women of the DC National Guard many times and today we renewed our request for their assistance.”
Asked if he may also request help from the National Guard, Adams said, “We’re going to do everything that’s possible at this time.”
“We believe that we can continue to carry out our moral and legal responsibility,” he added. “We are calling on Washington. It is Washington’s purpose to assist the states and cities during these difficult times. So we are looking for help from Washington, D.C.”
Adams urged Abbott to coordinate with NYC officials as buses continue to arrive in the city.
Asked if he had spoken directly with Abbott, Adams said, “no, I have not.”
“He should have picked the phone up, and we should communicate because, as I stated, this is a crisis,” Adams said.
Pressed on whether he would work with Adams to coordinate migrant arrivals, Abbott said that he previously sent Adams a letter and urged him to visit Texas to witness the “chaos” of the migrant crisis in the state firsthand, but Adams did not take him up on the offer.
“Before we began busing illegal immigrants up to New York, it was just Texas and Arizona that bore the brunt of all of the chaos and all the problems that come with it. Now, the rest of America is understanding exactly what is going on,” Abbott said.
The feud between Adams and Abbott comes amid a heated policy battle between the Republican governor, who is currently seeking reelection, and the Biden administration over a surge of migrant arrivals at the U.S.-Mexico border.
ABC News’ Armando Garcia, Beatrice Peterson, Luis Martinez and Kyla Guilfoil contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — A magistrate judge in Florida heard in-person arguments Thursday on a request from a coalition of media outlets to make public the affidavit supporting the search warrant executed at former President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate last week.
After hearing the Justice Department’s case, the judge appeared inclined toward deciding that at least a portion of could be unsealed with government redactions.
The Justice Department had urged the judge, Bruce Reinhart, to keep the affidavit fully under seal, arguing that if it were to be made public it could “cause significant and irreparable damage” to an ongoing criminal investigation involving highly classified materials related to national security.
Arguing on behalf of the Justice Department Thursday, Jay Bratt, the head of the agency’s counterintelligence and export control section, acknowledged the heightened public interest in this case, but argued there is another public interest which is the government’s position to keep the underlying affidavit sealed as it would provide a roadmap and “suggest next investigative steps that we would be about to take.”
Bratt said the investigation is in its “early stages” and feared for the safety of witnesses and potential witnesses and the threat of “possible obstruction and interference.”
“This investigation is open. It is in its early stages,” Bratt said.
Bratt argued that redactions to the affidavit would not be sufficient, as information in it could identify witnesses based on the descriptions of events that only certain people would have knowledge about.
But after hearing the government’s arguments, Judge Reinhart said, “I am not prepared to find that the affidavit should be fully sealed.”
The judge said he believes there are portions of it that presumptively could be unsealed — whether they would be meaningful is for someone else to decide, he said. The government may disagree with him on some points, he said, giving DOJ until next Thursday to file its proposed redactions.
ABC News and a number of other media organizations have called for the release of the affidavit, noting the historical significance of the unprecedented law enforcement search of a former president’s residence and the “immediate and intense public interest as well as a vociferous reaction from Mr. Trump and his allies.”
Officials said in their Monday filing, however, that they believed the redactions that would be necessary to protect the investigation “would be so extensive as to render the remaining unsealed text devoid of meaningful content.”
DOJ would likely seek an immediate appeal on any ruling by Judge Reinhart that would reveal further substantive details underlying their investigation.
The government said, though, it would not object to the unsealing of other materials filed in connection with the warrant, such as cover sheets for the application, the government’s motion to keep the warrant under seal and Judge Reinhart’s original sealing order — none of which will likely reveal much beyond the materials already disclosed.
Thursday afternoon, the court posted the other redacted materials that the Justice Department did not object to being unsealed.
The redacted copy of the search warrant released last Friday sent shockwaves through Washington, as it revealed the Justice Department was investigating the potential violation of at least three separate criminal statutes in its search of Mar a Lago, including obstruction of justice and one crime under the Espionage Act.
A property receipt accompanying the warrant shows agents seized 11 boxes of documents of various classifications, including one set referring to “classified/TS/SCI documents” (the acronym stands for top secret/sensitive compartmentalized information that not everyone with even top-secret clearance can view) and four other sets of top-secret documents.
The documents were discovered by authorities after a lawyer for Trump signed a statement in June to the FBI affirming that all classified documents on the premises had been handed over to investigators, sources confirmed to ABC News.
Trump’s team has yet to take court action despite publicly trying to pressure the Justice Department to release the full affidavit.
Christina Bobb, who is on Trump’s legal team, said they had no plans to file anything or speak publicly, but told reporters she came to watch the hearing.
Trump in recent days has called for the “immediate release” of the affidavit while leveling various attacks at the FBI and Justice Department, while also demanding over his social media website that the documents be returned to him. But Trump’s legal team has yet to take any sort of legal action on either front in response to the search.
Former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and former deputy White House counsel Pat Philbin are among multiple other witnesses interviewed by the FBI as part of its investigation, ABC News confirmed Tuesday, with sources saying both sat with investigators sometime in the spring. But there’s no indication that the Justice Department’s filing referencing officials’ hopes of protecting witnesses who testified in the investigation was a direct reference to Cipollone or Philbin.
ABC News’ John Santucci contributed to this report.
(NEW YORK) — Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “special military operation” into neighboring Ukraine began on Feb. 24, with Russian forces invading from Belarus, to the north, and Russia, to the east. Ukrainian troops have offered “stiff resistance,” according to U.S. officials.
The Russian military has since launched a full-scale ground offensive in eastern Ukraine’s disputed Donbas region, capturing the strategic port city of Mariupol and securing a coastal corridor to the Moscow-annexed Crimean Peninsula.
Here’s how the news is developing. All times Eastern:
Aug 18, 3:59 PM EDT
Russia reportedly tells Zaporizhzhia plant workers not to go to work Friday
Russia has reportedly told some workers at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant not to go to work on Friday, according to Ukrainian officials.
In an official Telegram channel, the main director of Ukraine’s military intelligence said Thursday, “Occupiers announced an unexpected day off on August 19. At the nuclear plant there will only be operational staff. All other employees will be denied entry.”
The official added that representatives of the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom also have “temporarily left the territory of the plant.”
This comes as both Ukraine and Russia have warned of a provocation being planned at the plant Friday.
-ABC News’ Britt Clennett
Aug 18, 1:08 PM EDT
Zelenskyy calls on UN to ensure demilitarization of Zaporizhzhya plant
During a meeting in Lviv on Thursday with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on the U.N. to ensure the demilitarization and “complete liberation” of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant from Russian forces, according to a statement from his office.
The two “agreed upon the parameters” of a possible visit to the plant by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, Zelenskyy’s office said.
Russia has claimed a demilitarized zone around the plant, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, would make it more vulnerable.
During their meeting in Lviv, Zelenskyy also called for a U.N. fact-finding mission to head to Olenivka, where dozens of Ukrainian prisoners of war were killed in an explosion late last month.
-ABC News’ Christine Theodorou
Aug 18, 12:04 PM EDT
Russia rejects calls to create demilitarized zone around Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
The international calls and proposals for Russia to create a demilitarized zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southeastern Ukraine are “unacceptable,” according to Ivan Nechayev, deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s Information and Press Department.
“Their implementation will make the plant even more vulnerable,” Nechayev said at a press briefing on Thursday.
Moscow is expecting experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the nuclear watchdog of the United Nations, to visit the Zaporizhzhia plant “in the near future,” according to Nechayev.
The secretary-generals of the U.N. and the IAEA have called for the establishment of a demilitarized zone around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant, which is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
Shortly after invading neighboring Ukraine on Feb. 24, Russian troops stormed the Zaporizhzhia plant, near the town of Enerhodar, on the banks of the Dnipro River in the country’s southeast. The Ukrainian workers have been left in place to keep the plant operating, as it supplies electricity across the war-torn nation. However, heavy fighting around the site has fueled fears of a catastrophe, like what happened at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in northern Ukraine over 36 years ago.
Aug 18, 9:34 AM EDT
Firefighter describes destruction after deadly strikes in Kharkiv
A Ukrainian firefighter who responded to the Russian missile attacks in Kharkiv overnight told ABC News that the scale of the blasts was “one of the biggest” he’s ever seen.
One of the rockets struck a large apartment block on Wednesday night, killing at least nine people and injuring another 16, according to Ukrainian authorities.
“It went through all four floors and hit the ground and almost blew up everything,” the firefighter, Roman Kachanov, told ABC News during an interview on Thursday. “All the buildings around were without windows.”
“There was a dormitory, and the building was almost completely ruined,” he added. “There was a playground that was smashed like a big titan blew it up.”
Kachanov is among the rescue workers searching for survivors amid the smoldering rubble.
“I’ve seen three bodies on the floor covered by objects,” he said. “We tried to extract them and while we tried, the other wall started to fall and we had to run away as fast as we can.”
Kachanov said another missile hit the city before dawn Thursday, not far from where he and his team were working. He said the blast “was very loud” and “sounded close.”
“Everyone had to lay down,” he recalled. “The team had to split — fire truck had to leave to go to that other fire.”
Aug 17, 5:40 PM EDT
Large apartment block struck in Kharkiv, at least 7 dead
At least seven people are dead and another 13 injured by strikes on a large apartment block in Kharkiv, officials said.
Based on recovered shrapnel, authorities determined an Iskander-M missile system was used in the strike, said Ivan Sokol, Ukraine’s director of the regional Department of Civil Defense.
Search and rescue efforts are ongoing at the three-story residential building, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine said.
-ABC News’ Tatiana Rymarenko
Aug 15, 1:49 PM EDT
Shelling resumes near power plant, both sides claim the other is firing
More shelling was underway Monday in city of Enerhodar, which is under Russian control and where the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant is located.
Enerhodar Mayor Dmytro Orlov urged residents to stay inside. He said Russian forces seized another government facility in Enerhodar, a lab where 30 of the employees are refusing to cooperate with the Russian-appointed administration.
Meanwhile, Russia’s semi-official Interfax reported that Ukrainian forces opened fire in Enerhodar.
Ukraine’s state nuclear regulator Energoatom said the plant remained occupied and controlled by Russian forces on Monday. The Ukrainian staff continues to work and make every effort to ensure nuclear and radiation safety, but Energoatom warned that periodic shelling by Russian troops with multiple rocket launchers since last week caused a serious risk to the safe operation of the plant.
Aug 15, 5:53 AM EDT
Griner to appeal Russian conviction, lawyer says
Brittney Griner’s defense team filed an appeal for the verdict by Khimky City Court, according to Maria Blagovolina, a partner at Rybalkin Gortsunyan Dyakin and Partners law firm.
The WNBA star was found guilty on drug charges in a Moscow-area court this month.
-ABC News’ Tanya Stukalova
Aug 14, 4:44 PM EDT
1st UN-chartered ship loaded with Ukrainian wheat set to depart for Africa
The first UN-chartered ship loaded with Ukrainian wheat is set to head for Africa from the near the port city Odesa, Ukrainian officials said Sunday.
The MV Brave Commander is loaded with 23,000 tons of wheat that will be shipped to Ethiopia as part of a mission to relieve a global food crisis caused by the Russian invasion of Ukraine that has halted grain exports for months, Ukrainian Infrastructure Minister Alexander Kubrakov announced at a news conference.
Kubrakov said the UN-chartered ship is scheduled to leave the Pivdenny port near Odesa on Monday.
“When three months ago, during the meeting of the President of Ukraine (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy and the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in Kyiv the first negotiations on unlocking Ukrainian maritime ports began, we have already seen how critical it is becoming a food situation in the world.” Kubrakov wrote in a Facebook post on Sunday. “This especially applies to the least socially protected countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, for whom Ukraine has always been a key importer of agro-production.”
He said Ethiopia is in desperate need of Ukrainian grain.
“This country has been suffering from record drought and armed confrontation for the second year in a row,” Kubrakov said. “Ukrainian grain for them without exaggeration — the matter of life and death.”
He said he hopes the MV Brave Commander will be the first many more grain shipments under the U.N. World Food Program.
Aug 12, 2:28 PM EDT
‘They treat us like captives’: Exiled Zaporizhzhia manager on conditions at plant
An exiled manager at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant told ABC News that the Ukrainian staff is treated “like captives.”
Oleg, who asked to be referred by a pseudonym, said he felt threatened by the Russian soldiers.
“They didn’t say, ‘I’m going to shoot you now,’ but they always carry guns and assault rifles with them,” said Oleg, who managed one of 80 units at the plant but was able to leave last month. “And when an assault rifle or a gun has a cocked trigger, I consider it as a threat.”
Amid reported shelling in the vicinity of the plant, Oleg said he was primarily concerned about its spent fuel containers, “which are in a precarious position, and they are not shielded well.”
Aug 11, 4:43 PM EDT
UN secretary-general calls for all military activities around nuclear power plant to ‘cease immediately’
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is “calling for all military activities” around the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant in southern Ukraine “to cease immediately,” and for armies not “to target its facilities or surroundings.”
Ukraine’s nuclear regulator Energoatom said Russian forces shelled the plant for a third time on Thursday, hitting close to the first power unit. Earlier on Thursday, Energoatom said five rockets struck the area around the commandant’s office, close to where the radioactive material is stored.
Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed interim governor of Zaporizhzhya Oblast, issued a statement claiming Ukrainian forces struck the plant, hitting close to an area with radioactive material.
Guterres said he’s appealed to all parties to “exercise common sense” and take any actions that could endanger the physical integrity, safety or security of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
“Instead of de-escalation, over the past several days there have been reports of further deeply worrying incidents that could, if they continue, lead to disaster,” he said, adding that he’s “gravely concerned.”
Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, pleaded with the U.N. Security Council Thursday to allow for an IAEA mission to visit the plant as soon as possible. He said the situation at the plant is deteriorating rapidly and is “becoming very alarming.”
(OTTUMWA, IA) — A 68-year-old man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder after allegedly shooting his wife with a crossbow while she slept on a sofa in their home.
The incident occurred at approximately 1:13 a.m. on Wednesday morning when authorities in Ottumwa, Iowa, responded to a report that a woman had been shot at a residence in the town, which is located approximately 90 miles southeast of the state capital of Des Moines.
The victim, later identified as 68-year-old Lillian Dennison, was reportedly on the sofa when her husband approached her with a crossbow and shot her as she slept, according to a press release published by the Ottumwa Police Department.
Authorities say that Dennison was taken to a local area hospital and treated for minor injuries suffered in the attack. She was subsequently released and is expected to survive.
Her husband managed to flee the scene of the crime after he allegedly shot her but was located approximately nine hours later, according to police.
“Later that morning at approximately 10:00 a.m., officers from the Ottumwa Police Department and the Wapello County Sheriff’s Department arrested George Edward Dennison, age 68, near the wooded area around Evergreen and Mable in Ottumwa,” police said in a statement.
George Dennison was arrested and taken into custody and charged with attempt to commit murder along with domestic abuse assault. Authorities did not disclose any possible motives in this case.
He is now being held on these charges in the Wapello County Jail with a $50,000 cash only bond but it is unclear when he will be appearing in court.
(NEW YORK) — The COVID-19 pandemic has had unprecedented effects on our society and even more so on our senior population, as they struggle to manage care. In some cases, they are without their loved ones being able to visit them, creating a further sense of isolation, heightened anxiety and depression due to fear of contracting the virus.
Statistics show 43% of seniors experienced loneliness during this period. While taking care of loved ones is priority, caregivers experienced higher levels of stress as they tried to manage their own needs while taking care of their loved ones, leading to further negative health outcomes.
Per research conducted by the National Rehabilitation Research and Training Center, family caregivers experienced more negative effects from the pandemic than those who weren’t, including more emotional, physical and financial burdens. Female caregivers, younger caregivers and especially families with lower incomes experienced significant issues.
The pandemic has increased our awareness on the burden our caregivers face. We would need to further create a strong ecosystem to address this issue.
Here are four ways we can address and support our caregivers as part of a care infrastructure for better health in our nation.
Most of our caregivers spend 78% of their income to take care of their loved ones, leading them to diminish their savings and retirement. There are also situations where caregivers have to leave their jobs, leading to lesser incomes, more debts, unpaid bills and reduced Social Security retirement benefits. Some solutions that have emerged include adopting policies that allow flexible work hours. Furthermore, municipalities can provide tax credits to employers offering a minimum number of weeks of paid leave to family caregivers, make tax credit eligibility criteria more accessible to middle income families and extend job protections.
Second, caregivers face enormous difficulty being able to access services within their communities such as transportation, tailored meals and in-home health services due to lack of financial stability, better nutrition education and understanding resource availability overall. According to the National Alliance for Caregiving, 27% of caregivers found it very difficult and 62% of the caregivers needed training and access to information to better understand how to take care of themselves and their loved ones. Systems need modernization and integration as it can be difficult to find all information that is needed in one place. Finally, mental health services would be critical for caregivers as well as for their loved ones they are supporting.
Caregiver burnout is significant for professional and family caregivers. The exhaustion and burden of work results in caregivers not being able to attend to their own needs and have a state of physical, mental and emotional exhaustion. There needs to be additional support for caregivers to provide relief and mitigate the risk of burnout.
Fourth but not least, we need to leverage technology. By 2020, approximately 120 million older Americans will need care at home. According to the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), the majority of caregivers—some 45 million—will be unpaid (compared to 5 million paid caregivers), and many will care for more than one aging family member. Technologies such as telehealth and bio sensors, with their capabilities to meet members where they are and to proactively detect health concerns, could help provide education, consultation, psychosocial/cognitive behavioral therapy (including problem solving training), data collection and monitoring, clinical care delivery and social support. Better data and predictive analytics will lead to more tailored interventions. As technology is used by caregivers, it will require digital literacy as well to be as effective but could also reduce caregiver burden.
In conclusion, caregivers are an integral part of our society. They need additional support, access to mental health professionals, care infrastructure and a living wage. We need to move forward by creating solutions at the intersection of innovation, partnerships and awareness. Employers for example can create partnerships with caregiver organizations. Our caregivers need care in order to give care.
(NEW YORK) — Just under 1 million people utilized abortion services in the U.S. in 2020, according to recent data from the Guttmacher Institute. Another report from Guttmacher in 2016 showed that 90% of abortion patients in the U.S. obtained their procedure in the first trimester.
Medication abortion is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for up to 10 weeks into pregnancy, but there is good literature that has shown it is an effective method of abortion up to 11 weeks. This means the majority of people seeking abortion services are able to get medication abortions, Dr. Deborah Bartz, a gynecologist at Brigham and Women’s in Boston, told ABC News in an interview.
The abortion pill is the most common form of abortion in first trimester pregnancies, with recent data showing that 54% of those eligible now choose to undergo medication abortion over a procedure, Bartz said.
As access to abortion continues to be restricted in many states, more may choose to self-manage their abortions for several reasons, such as not being able to afford to travel for care, according to Dr. Meera Shah, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic.
Self-managed abortions were often risky pre-Roe, but abortion medication has offered a safe method for self-induced abortions.
Many patients in other countries have taken the abortion pill past 11 weeks, and there are several ongoing studies underway for usage of the pill beyond 11 weeks, Bartz said.
“You can take medications and induce pregnancy expulsion, essentially, at any gestation. It’s just as of right now, our literature indicates that 11 weeks is the upper limit on when we should be recommending that to most patients,” Bartz said.
The most robust and effective way to get a medication abortion is by taking two pills: mifepristone and misoprostol, Bartz said.
Mifepristone, which is taken first, blocks the hormone progesterone. Progesterone is needed for the pregnancy to grow inside the uterus. When mifepristone is taken, it begins the process of emptying the uterus.
Mifepristone can be taken at home or in a healthcare provider’s office.
The second medication, misoprostol is taken within 24 to 48 hours of the first medication. This causes uterine cramping and cervical softening and expels the pregnancy from the body, Bartz said.
Misoprostol causes cramping and bleeding, similar to a heavy period or miscarriage, to empty the uterus, according to Dr. Meera Shah, Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic.
“By taking the two medications together, what an individual is doing is essentially inducing a miscarriage. There are other means of doing medication abortion, and many people in the United States and throughout the world use misoprostol only. That is also a very good regimen,” Bartz said.
The Mifepristone-Misoprostal regimen is about 95% effective if taken within the first 11 weeks of pregnancy, while the misoprostal alone is about 85% effective, Bartz said.
The process itself takes a couple of hours. The further along patients are in the pregnancy, the more complex their symptoms may be and the longer their symptoms might last, according to Bartz.
Patients typically experience bleeding and cramping, which can be more severe the further along they are in pregnancy. This typically results within one to five hours, Bartz said.
“It’s probably a little bit more intense than like the first day of a person’s period. So, a little bit heavier bleeding than a period, a little bit more cramps than a period. But, there are many patients who experience symptoms that are not much more than their period,” Bartz said.
It is recommended that patients not be alone when they take the pills in case they experience more pain than expected or have heavy bleeding. Patients are usually advised to take pain medication, like ibuprofen, and maybe an anti-nausea medication ahead of time, before the cramps start, Bartz said.
Patients also experience flu-like symptoms including fevers, chills, nausea, vomiting and diarrhea, all of which is normal with medication abortions, Bartz said.
When a person becomes pregnant, they are automatically in a higher risk category than someone who is not pregnant. So, getting an abortion of any kind puts a patient at less risk than if they continue a pregnancy, according to Bartz.
“The risk of maternal mortality associated with full term pregnancy and delivery is about 14 times higher than the risk of interrupting a pregnancy with a either medical or surgical abortion,” Bartz said.
Roughly 5% of patients experience incomplete abortions, meaning the pregnancy does not pass in its entirety. In these rare cases, the medication might not work the first time around, and they either have a continuing pregnancy or they have clinically significant pregnancy tissue that does not pass all the way, Bartz said.
“So they actually potentially would need either a second dose of the medications or to undergo the surgical the uterine aspiration procedure to bring those that pregnancy tissue out after they’ve taken that medication if it hasn’t worked. But 95% of patients, have the medication work just fine the first time,” Bartz said.
Rarely, some patients who experience severe bleeding may need to call their physician’s office or be seen in an emergency room for a blood transfusion. Less than 1% of patience experience bleeding significant enough that they would need a blood transfusion, Bartz said.
“If a patient is bleeding so heavily that she’s soaking pads a pad, an hour for a couple of hours, then we would want to see her,” Bartz said.
Another rare risk is the risk of an infection. As the cervix opens up a bit, there is a low risk that an infection could travel to the uterus, but doctors do not even prescribe antibiotics to prevent risk of infection because there is more risk from taking the antibiotic than there is of getting an infection, Bartz said.
Patients can experience mild or moderate bleeding and cramping on and off for up to a month after taking the abortion pill. Most get their next period one to two months after the abortion, according to Dr. Meera Shah, Chief Medical Officer of Planned Parenthood Hudson Peconic.
Having an abortion does not decrease your chance of having a healthy pregnancy later on, or affect your future overall health unless a rare, serious complication occurs or is left untreated, according to Shah.
(LEXINGTON, MS) — A month after the police chief of a Mississippi town was fired following leaked audio allegedly of him using racial slurs, a civil rights group is suing the department.
Jill Colin Jefferson, the founder of the civil rights organization Julian, filed a lawsuit against Lexington, Mississippi, its police department, and others on behalf of five residents who claimed to have been victims of mistreatment by officers.
The lawsuit contends that the police force has had a long history of racially profiling its Black residents including with alleged targeted traffic stops, harassment and retaliation for speaking out against cops.
The suit contends the plaintiffs have “been falsely arrested, forced to undergo baseless searches and seizures at roadblocks, and subjected to unreasonable force by LPD officers when they verbally object to police mistreatment,” among other incidents experienced by Black residents over the last two years.
Roughly 1,500 of Lexington’s 1,800 residents are Black, according to the suit.
Jefferson told ABC News Live that the suit stems from the department’s operation under former police chief Sam Dobbins, who is one of the defendants in the suit. Last month, Dobbins was fired after audio from a conversation he allegedly had with other officers was leaked in which he allegedly used racial slurs against Black people.
Jefferson contends that Dobbins still has a presence over the police force due to his time spent training and instructing officers.
“The way that this town functions is that it continues to function in his shadow. His dominance is still there,” Jefferson told ABC News.
The Lexington Police Department and Lexington’s mayor’s office didn’t respond to requests for comment from ABC News about the suit. Dobbins told the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, which released the audio, that he didn’t use racial or other slurs, adding, “I don’t talk like that,” when he was asked about his recorded comments in July.
The suit cites a few examples of police misconduct against Black Lexington residents.
One was an alleged incident involving brothers Darius and Robert Harris, who were approached by officers on New Year’s Eve. The officers allegedly cited the brothers for using fireworks on Robert Harris’s private property and violating a city ordinance, according to the suit.
During the incident, which was filmed, officers allegedly tased Darius Harris, the suit said.
Jefferson told ABC News that Dobbins then harassed her client while he was still in pain.
“Sam Dobbins went to Darius and actually showed his flashlight in his face when he’s on the ground and told him to put his hands behind his back. At that moment, that was physically impossible,” she said.
The lawsuit doesn’t cite charges filed against Darius Harris, but details an alleged pattern of retaliation by police officers against both Harris brothers.
In another example, the suit cited a March incident involving plaintiff Peter Reeves, who criticized a police officer on social media. Reeves was allegedly stopped at a roadblock by the same officer, according to the suit.
Reeves was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance because he had a Tylenol bottle in his vehicle, the suit contends.
Jefferson said other Black residents have been subjected to roadblocks by the police. Tasha Walden, a Lexington resident, told ABC News, that in addition to the roadblocks, she’s seen and experienced officers following Black residents outside the city limits.
“It’s more than me, it’s basically 99% of the Black [community],” she told ABC News.
The suit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages.
Jefferson said she wants more policy changes to the police department to be enacted by the city government and better accountability when residents file complaints against officers.
Last year, more than 200 complaints were filed against the police department, the suit said.
“That’s the other thing we need…a civilian complaint review board to actually review these complaints as they come in, because right now they’re just being swept under the rug,” she said. “But on a larger level, we need a federal investigation into what is happening in Lexington, not just of this police department or one of two or one or two officers, but this entire municipality.”
